Let me set the scene:
I’m cutting through a patch of cursed forest (as one does), chasing whispers about a “shattered ghost cat” haunting the bike trails near Innsmouth Academy.
(That’s a separate post. I’m still emotionally processing the meowing.)
Anyway, I duck under a fallen pine, nearly faceplant into a tripwire, and before I can say “booby trap?!” I’m surrounded. By kids. Armed to the braces with homemade weapons, monster-worn backpacks, and more attitude than I thought possible under five feet tall.
Welcome to the League of Monster Slayers.
Kingsmouth’s deadliest preteens.
At first I thought it was just some LARP group — very Stranger Things but more caffeinated. But no. These kids weren’t playing. They had codewords, lookout rotations, a working crossbow (!!!), and a binder labelled “Field Intel: Category Reds.”
I flipped it open expecting Pokémon.
I got sketches of ghouls. Real ones. Ones I’ve seen.
Their leader — a girl named Ellie with a slingshot and no patience for adults — asked me, deadpan:
“Are you infected, or just clueless?”
I replied, “Can’t I be both?”
She didn’t laugh.
These kids know more than most adults in Kingsmouth — and unlike the adults, they’re actually doing something about it.
They’ve tracked patterns, identified hotspots, even mapped out “Zones of Low Reality Integrity” (I’m stealing that term). They showed me a cave where “bad dreams come out of the walls.” I lasted five minutes in there. Ellie calls me “Softcore.”
They’re unclaimed, unaffiliated, and possibly the last line of defence between Kingsmouth and utter oblivion.
I gave them my contact info. They gave me a walkie-talkie, tuned to Channel 7.
I haven’t heard anything yet…
But I leave it on.
Because here’s the thing:
They believe the monsters are real.
And I think the monsters believe in them too.
Stay scrappy,
— Jenna 🧃
keep feeding
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